indigenous First Nations Inuit matey Aboriginal there are so many different terms out there that it can be kind of confusing if you don't know what they all mean but actually it might be simpler than you think I'm Aussie Michelin and I'm an internist from Northwest River Labrador and I'm here to teach you how to talk about indigenous people in Canada let's start with the term indigenous according to the United Nations there are 370 million indigenous people worldwide spread across 70 countries in Canada there are approximately 1.4 million people who identify as indigenous here there are
three distinct groups that makes up the term indigenous First Nations Inuit and Metis First Nations is the largest and most varied group of indigenous people and they can be found from coast to coast to coast sometimes I hear people using the term indigenous and First Nations as if they were interchangeable but they're not using indigenous when you're referring to a specific group it's kind of like saying Asian when you're referring to the Vietnamese or South Korean it works sometimes but if you use it all the time it just sounds wrong the rule of thumb is
to be as specific as possible if somebody is Cree it's okay to refer to them as being creep and if you don't know ask them how they self-identify next are the matey the matey are the descendants of First Nations and European settlers and often refer to a distinct Geographic group coming from the historic Northwest you can find matey all across Canada but they all share a unique distinct cultural heritage the enemies are the maritime circumpolar people of Canada with a homeland stretching all the way from Siberia to Greenland in Canada there are four Inuits homelands
but they're not all just north of 60 with populations in both Quebec and Labrador in the Inuit language and note they took the word any means people and you might have heard the term in Oakes before it opens person so remember it's one enough many anyway and don't say Inuit people because that's redundant so that's it for First Nations Inuit in matey but what about Aboriginal do we still even use that term well generally no it's out there still but it's being replaced by indigenous which is an internationally used term so remember these simple rules
if you want to get it right be as specific as possible if you're referring to one person or one community then name it if there's more than one community people then use the broader terms like first nation any week or matey if there are different groups together then say indigenous and if you don't know ask most people are happy to tell you about where they're from and where their parents are from and where their grandparents are from than where their whole family is from that's kind of how it works in the indigenous world thanks I
hope that helps that's a mix
